He was only 44 but nearly blind, in constant pain from an illness in his stomach, worn out from the lack of care he had given his body. It is true that he once apologised to Brother Ass, as he called his body, for the abuse he had inflicted on It, but there is no evidence that he heeded his own health message!

He died singing, and the legend says that at the moment of his death, larks flew singing into the sky.

Why do I find such a man such an attractive model of the Christian faith?

In a nutshell because he was passionate about God. He could be spectacularly wrong, as he was with the treatment of Brother Ass, but even that is a result of his never-ending enthusiasm to spread the message of Christ.

And in St Francis’ life, and on St Francis’ lips, what a message that was.

God, he said, is love. Well, we all know that. But for St Francis, God is love that never comes to an end. You’ve heard of Médecins sans Frontières, Doctors without Borders, well, St Francis proclaimed that God was Amour sans Frontières, love without boundaries. God loves every creature infinitely and equally.

Francis’ energy was spent in going about telling everyone this transforming message. If you really let God’s love take hold of you, you will never experience the end of it: it will always be there, always supporting, holding, delighting in you. Knowing that love, you can then pass it on. And because it is amour sans frontières, as you give love away, the supply never runs out.

That’s the whole message of the Cross, the whole meaning of the life of Jesus, the whole purpose of God. And I thank God for sending Francis of Assisi to refresh that message in me.

Immerse yourself in the infinity of Divine Love – love without boundaries!

Ted Witham
Minister Provincial

Today, the Feast of St Clare, is a joyful day in our calendar. I invite you to rejoice in this humble and enduring saint of Assisi, who took the vision of St Francis and made it concrete in her situation.

St Clare inspires to live more generously, to love more unconstrainedly, to sing God’s praises more warmly, and to walk bravely with Christ.

To mark today’s feast, I offer this hymn for you to use as you wish in celebrating St Clare. The hymn is here: http://wp.me/pI7Dl-1L

Peace, joy and love,

Ted Witham.
Minister Provincial

When I was a child, I remember fads for French knitting, sometimes started in the Witham household and sometimes from Tambellup School. If you don’t know this craft, you take a wooden cotton reel, hammer four thumb tacks around the central hole, then loop woollen thread around the tacks and feed the leading threads through the long hole. If you have threaded correctly, a woven woollen rope appears at the bottom hole and grows and grows. This rope is then used to make pot holders and dressing gown girdles, and pot holders and … well; actually the dressing gown girdles are not much good, because they stretch out of shape quickly.

But French knitting is the sort of craft that keeps you occupied for hours. It whiled away the long 90 minute school bus ride. You could pick it up after tea and keep going for hours. I was always fascinated with the process, watching these four thin threads go in the top and re-appear as a beautiful woven lanyard.

Let me liken this process of French knitting to the way in which we reach out for new members. At the top are enquirers, each of them a single life, usually seeking something more in the Christian journey. At the bottom are the newly-professed, beautiful woven as new Franciscans and ready to be put to work in an appropriate ministry.

For the moment we don’t see the important work that happens between the top and the bottom, but I will come back to that. At the time of your Reports, most Regions in Australia report regularly that they have four or five enquirers. Let’s take the upper figure, because you may not be reporting the enquirers earlier in the year. There are seven Regions, so 35 Enquirers a year. I have been fielding about one Internet enquirer a month, so each year nearly 50 enquirers come to us.

Chapter elects about 10 novices to Profession each year, and it’s quite fascinating to watch the process as a wide range of individuals gather at the top of the cotton reel and an enthusiastic and smaller group appears out the other end two or three years later.

Although I can’t show it in the figures, this past year has seen quite an invigoration in the Enquiry process primarily because of the brochures Chapter authorised in Adelaide. Ian Randall’s design is outstanding. I have heard quite a few good comments about it. I would be interested to hear how they have gone in your Region, and whether the posters from Aotearoa-New Zealand also had an impact.

We should continue to use these publicity materials. Even if enquiries and eventually new members don’t increase because of them, they are effective in keeping up our position in the minds of ordinary Anglicans.

GROWTH OF PAPUA NEW GUINEA

STATISTICS OF THE PROVINCE (February 2011):

Professed:
Australia and East Asia 238 (233 at 8/5)
Papua New Guinea 58 (59 at 8/5)

Novices:
Australia and East Asia 36 (41 at 8/5)
Papua New Guinea 30 (29 at 8/5)

These are the statistics that will be published in the 2011 edition of the Anglican Year Book of Religious Life. Our Minister-General thought it would be helpful if we presented the statistics for our Province and for Aotearoa-New Zealand showing the numbers in PNG and the Solomons separate from the main group of Tertiaries. Both the Solomons and PNG are ambitious to be Provinces in their own right. PNG, in particular, has set 2017, the next IPTOC after this year’s, as its target date for separation.

Chapter last year approved a list of conditions for the formation of new Provinces. This list will go to IPTOC this year for ratification by the world-wide Order. The overall condition to be satisfied is the question, Why? A new Province has to justify the benefits to the Tertiaries in its boundaries and to the Order as a whole. Two of the other criteria are progress towards governance as a Province; and a meaningful financial contribution to the life of the whole Order.

After last year’s Chapter meeting, I met with Harold and Anselm to go through this list, and we identified these two as real challenges for the emerging Province. We note that there are currently only 80 Tertiaries in PNG – although that number increases significantly each year. The vision is that PNG will eventually have five Regions, one for each Diocese in the Anglican Church of Papua New Guinea.

Most of the Tertiaries in the current Regions, Popondetta and Dogura, are subsistence farmers. Theirs is not a cash economy. We are invited, for example, to continue to contribute for fuel for the Franciscans in Mission dinghy, because none of the Tertiaries earn cash to pay for diesel.

Let us not pretend that travel across PNG and international travel for PNG Ministers can ever be cheap.
The Australian Province currently spends $8,000 a year to enable Harold and Anselm to participate in the Province, mainly by bringing them to Chapter. We contribute $1,500 each year to the Central Fund for travel for all our representatives to IPTOC and Provincial Ministers’ meetings, of which perhaps one-third of that would directly pay for PNG representatives. This means that we must continue to budget eight to nine thousand dollars a year for this.

These are huge challenges. We share them, and will continue to share them with PNG for many years, whatever the outcome in 2017. That’s the commitment in love that we continue to make. I enumerate the challenges now because I want us both to understand their size and not to lose heart. We worked together to buy and launch the Dinghy; we can work together to achieve the ambitions of the PNG Tertiaries.

• Firstly, I commit the PNG Province project to your prayers. We need to pray that we discern where God is leading the Regions in PNG. Being a Province may not be the same for PNG as it is for Australia. May God keep our minds open.

• Secondly, I encourage us to look for creative solutions to the twin challenges of finance and governance.

• Thirdly, I invite people to consider that the financial giving we in Australia have made to PNG is ongoing. Wherever our prayers and visioning lead us, PNG will continue to need our money in order to participate fully in the Third Order.

To help us in this process, I would like to explore the idea of gathering an “eminent persons’ group” that can meet in teleconference and by email to envisage the Province of PNG. We have senior Tertiaries in Australia with a long experience of PNG whose minds we rarely tap.

If the growth of PNG fits into the metaphor of French knitting, I expect that its success will depend on the strength of the leading threads that go to make the finished pattern: that is, firstly, the quality and diversity of the individuals that will seek to become Novices in PNG, and secondly, the attitude which we in Australia adopt to our resourcing of this process.

Helen and Harold will add to these thoughts in their Reports.

FORMATION
I am convinced that the middle part of the process of making the Franciscan community is crucial: the hidden time of novices being nurtured by their novice counsellors. You may have noticed in the responses to Helen’s questionnaire that new Tertiaries valued their relationship with the novice counsellor much higher than their contact with the local group, whom some found cliquey and confusing.

On that particularity, it is worth noting that Regional Ministers should introduce an Enquirer to their local group fairly late in the process. I read the guidelines as suggesting that meeting the group should be towards the end of the six-month Enquiry period, after the new person has had time to quietly establish a relationship with the Regional Minister and the planned Novice Counsellor. I regret that when I was Regional Minister I rushed the process, and Helen’s research actually shows the reasons to not rush.

I appeal to Chapter to continue to give high priority to the invisible but absolutely vital novice formation process. The quality of our formation is the key to a vibrant, faithful and active Third Order community.

The Guidelines for the existing process give both the rationale and outline the concrete steps to be taken by the Minister, the Novice Counsellor and the Novice. Re-read them regularly! The training modules for Novice Counsellors are there to be used and were designed for maximum flexibility: they work one on one, or with a group of Novice Counsellors. You can pick out one hour, or use all modules over a day, and every configuration in between; but please use them.

Helen will report formally on the review she is undertaking of the formation materials, in particular the 12 Novice Notes. Please support this in any way that she asks and give feedback to her, Janet Down and Denis Woodbridge even if they haven’t asked. Keeping these materials fresh and powerful introductions to the Franciscan life is vital, even if sometimes invisible.

REGIONAL MINISTERS
It was good to welcome five new Regional Ministers at our Chapter Eucharist:
• Ken Reardon, QLD-B
• John Gibson, NSW-B
• Joy Bartlett, VIC-TAS
• Joan Manners, SA
• Rae Witham, WA

This is the most incoming Ministers we have had since, I suspect, Regional Ministers were made ex officio members of Chapter in the early nineties. Elaine Jeston (QLD-A) and Esmé Parker (NSW-A) are the only two mainland Ministers who were at our last meeting. Harold Joinoba (POP), Anselm Rupusina (DOG) and Gerald Ng (MAL) also continue, but the task of Minister is quite different from Australia in PNG and Malaysia.

I have become aware over the past 5 years of how demanding the position of Regional Minister is. For most Regions, it requires a considerable number of hours each week. I commend you on your commitment to our Order in taking the role on. Thank you for your willingness to serve your sisters and brothers in this particular way.

Chapter needs to value even more highly the institutional memories we still have, which reside both in Elaine and Esmé and in your predecessors in the job. As new Regional Ministers, I encourage you to seek out the information you need for your role.

ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATION
In the past six years, we have developed our website (www.tssf.org.au), which is sadly under-used, and our electronic lists for communication, which can be directed across the Province, to individual Regions, to Chapter members and to other groupings.

While 67% of Australians are connected to the internet, David White tells me that only about one half of Tertiaries receive these electronic communications. The arrival of the National Broadband Network (NBN) may increase participation, but it is worth noting that some Tertiaries have chosen not to have the Internet because they see it as an example of a luxury warned of in Day 11 of The Principles. This caution about being online serves as a healthy reminder to the rest of us that having the finances to maintain a computer and pay for an Internet package is a privilege.

Those Tertiaries online enjoy the Franciscan community ranging from simply receiving emails to taking part in discussions on the Inter-Provincial Facebook page. It’s only a few short years since our Area meetings were the only occasion on which I met people with concerns and interests like mine; now I have an abundance of opportunities to engage with other Franciscans every day. Whether it’s reading a short passage of Franciscan writing or being encouraged to join in some activism on the Web or thrashing out issues like the Franciscan attitudes to military intervention, the Web can serve powerfully to strengthen our Franciscan vocation. Or more simply, I can start a real-time ‘chat’ with an individual Tertiary in Malaysia or a Roman Catholic Secular in North Dakota.

The challenge has always been to make sure that the 50% of Tertiaries who are not on the internet receive all essential communications, and that an effort is made to ensure that some of the sense of community that the Web offers overflows to that half of our membership.

It is also true that being so strongly connected has a dark side: we can waste colossal amounts of time on the Web. The Googlization of information can make us more consumerist. Rubbish lies around everywhere on the Web, ranging from pornography to hate speech to celebrity culture. These things can be dangerous to us or can trivialise our commitments as Franciscans. The connections we make with people in cyberspace are good, but they are thin gruel compared to relationships here and near. It’s not all good. As we encourage people to use these powerful new communications, we also have an obligation to point them into wise use of them.

It has been good that it has been David who has been developing our electronic communications over the past five years. David has the knowledge and technical skills to use the tools that are available which best serve our Province. He is also somewhat sceptical about the Web, and has been more discerning than others who are enthusiasts for internet culture.

I hope that the next Provincial Secretary will continue to use the internet to develop our community.

ANGLICAN RELIGIOUS LIFE YEAR BOOK

Every two years a Year Book detailing the Anglican Communion’s Religious Orders and Communities is published. For the past two editions and for the 2011 edition, the Third Order has had a separate page which includes details on each Province as well as the overall picture.

The editor of the Year Book is Petà Dunstan, the author of the history of the European Province of the First Order, This Poor Sort, and she has been sympathetic to our inclusion as a religious order in its own right. The task of collating the information has fallen to me, but I hope that one of the other Provincial Ministers will pick it up for the 2013 edition.

BOOKS

A stream of Franciscan books continues to appear. Most recently is Tertiary Susan Pitchford’s excellent God in the Dark, and Ilia Delio has just produced The Emergent Christ, continuing her themes of cosmic evolution and the world as sacrament. Interpreting Francis and Clare of Assisi was launched in Melbourne in December 2010. It arose from the meeting of Franciscan scholars in that city in 2009. It includes my piece on the Third Order in Australia and how we are inspired by St Francis. Books like these can be recommendations or gifts for those who like reading, not only for fellow Tertiaries, but also for others who we think might like to know more about being a Franciscan in the 21st Century.

Enquirers knitted in

www.tssf.org.au

Third Order page on Facebook

New Franciscan books

We keep these conversations dark because our focus shouldn’t really be on ourselves but on the plight of those whose homes, livelihoods and lives have been affected by the real floods – not the ones in our imaginations.

As concerned Christians and Franciscans, we should be looking for ways to be better informed, generous in praying and giving money and offering practical help where possible (all expressions of love). (The best appeal I can find is the Premier’s Appeal at www.qld.gov.au/floods. If you specifically want to help Anglican parishes get back onto their feet, give to the Australian Anglican Primate’s Appeal. You can give electronically to: Arch­bishop’s Emergency Relief Fund; A/C BSB: 704-901; A/C No.: 00014858.)

But we must attend to these dark conversations too. When he was afraid, David cried out, “In God whose word I praise, in God I trust; I am not afraid, what can flesh do to me?” (Psalm 56:4) Our worries about our own homes are natural, but in a way they are not worthy of us.

Firstly, our love should go out to those who are actually in need in the ways I have suggested earlier. Secondly, our response can continue to be trust and not fear. “In God I trust, I am not afraid”, for how can essentially material damage harm me? Fear always diminishes us, trust always makes life more spacious and gracious.

So when your conversation turns to the dark side, take courage and bring the light of trust. You may need to say, “Yes, it’s theoretically possible that we will get flooded, but shouldn’t we be thinking about those who are actually dealing with mud and muck and discouragement?” We may need to remind ourselves that God hasn’t changed: God is still worthy of our trust. God is still faithful. Praise God!

The Advent 2010 Newsletter has just been published.

Enjoy.

As on previous occasions the three-day meeting was grounded in the worship and faith-sharing at the start of each day. In addition to this, a Eucharist was celebrated on the Friday evening to honour the work of two volunteers, Mary Theresa Plante FMM and Bernadette Sullivan SFP, who have been working from the New York office of FI for many years, tracking events at the UN and working with other NGO’s.

One of the achievements of the past months for FI has been the appointment of all three Regional Directors in Geneva, New York and Bangkok. As well as being responsible for their own regions, Europe and Africa, the Americas and Asia/Pacific each of these will take the lead in advocacy. This means that the Executive Director will be able to fulfil the task of taking global responsibility and co-ordinating all three offices, which will have some degree of autonomy. All three, Markus Heinze OFM, Mike Lasky OFM Conv and Mateus Tuniewcs recently net up with Denise Boyle fmdm, the Executive Director, and she reported a high level of energy and co-operation between them all.

Work continues with great attention being paid to the UPR, The Universal Periodic Review, whereby every nation in turn is scrutinised on the issue of human rights. FI sees its role as helping with presentations and following up with proposed action from the UN. Member of the New York office had recently gone to Brazil to meet with JPIC reps and Provincials and also grass roots to help with their presentation for the Review of Brazil in 2012.

Other ongoing work consists of training sessions and as we met, Mateus and a team from the Bangkok office were working in the Solomon Islands with Clark and other Anglicans. From early reports of this venture, I gather it was a great success, with several notable firsts, namely not just the first co-operation with Anglicans, but also the first time FI had trained in the Pacific and the first time that all the Anglican communities had got together to train. I understand that a common declaration was made and a press conference held.

This kind of training work is a core part of the service that FI can offer. Foundations are keen to give funds, including set-up costs, so this very valuable work can be funded. Elsewhere within the organization there is great concern about funds. As with so many at the current time, donations have dropped considerably and the excellent scheme of urging people to give 5$ or £5 a month has not taken off as much as was hoped. Various cost-cutting exercises were proposed, but there is real concern that core work should not be threatened. One of the main issues is spreading costs globally. There is strong feeling in some quarters that money raised in one are should be spent in that area. (A feeling that I encountered when I wrote to other Third Order Provinces.) This however ignores the fact of administrative and other support from Geneva or New York to other offices. Attention has been paid to establishing the offices according to local laws with at least semi-autonomy, but funds will continue to be an issue. Denise Boyle herself feels that the Franciscan way is to share and support those in need as and when they need it. Geneva has already halved its office space to cut costs.
A new initiative set up by a new member of the New York office, Heather Metcalf, is ‘Hear it from the Experts’. Each month an evening meeting is held at St Francis’ Church on relevant themes. The evening before the Board Meeting we all went to a talk, Islam in the 21st century ,given by Fr Elias Mallon SA, who also works from the New York FI office . It was extremely good and based on his years of study and experience and the evening was well attended. Fr Elias is coming to the UK next year and will speak at Hilfield and Canterbury. He is well worth hearing. I much admired his sense of humour and his way of dealing with questions from those who still hold 9/11 close in mind and sympathise with those who object to the building of a so-called mosque near the site.

We went to the UN for a briefing on the various women’s groups at the UN and the recent amalgamation of them into one body under a high profile leader. Two of the sisters from St Anthony’s Convent where I stayed also came to this briefing and I became aware of how much work at the UN is done by individuals tracking and following up evidence of human rights abuse on the ground. I particularly like the definition of FI as having one foot in the UN and one foot in the grass roots.

Active advocacy work by FI in the US as it faced its own UPR included issues on homelessness and the right to adequate housing; the rights of migrant workers who have been illegally detained; human trafficking and the impact of mining on indigenous peoples’ rights to clean water and food.

We were reminded of the valuable role of the Clares who pray and support FI and I was wondering how I could engage with the Sisters at Freeland. Can I approach them direct or should I make a point of going to see them and ask for their help? Would Sr Helen Julian be able to act as an intermediary?

We covered a lot of ground and worked hard, but there was time for some marvellous American hospitality and as always time for much laughter.

I am more than happy to give talks to publicise the work of FI and am due to go to a Third Order Cluster meeting next May in Norfolk. Any requests would be appreciated.

I did intimate to the Board that, having discussed the matter with Dorothy it was very likely that I would not expect to serve a second term of 3 years on the Board of FI. If the process follows the same course as it did for me ,I would expect any nomination, together with a CV, would need to go to the Franciscan Family, ie the four Heads of the Franciscan Orders, when they meet in October of next year for appointment the following year. The date of the following FI Board meeting would be 19,20,21 April 2012.

Averil Swanton
December 3 2010

The Chapel of St Elizabeth, Bunbury, Western Australia

Those of us who live in this region know that behind the picturesque vineyards and glorious beaches lies a history of hardship, as newcomers came without farming skills to an environment that can be quite harsh and unforgiving. Huge karri and jarrah trees had to be cut down, or killed by ring-barking, thus delaying any income that the pioneers might derive from the land. And even when the land was ready for cattle, prosperity was still not to be found. It is only in recent years that better ways of living in this country are being found, as the harvesting of old-growth forests has been slowed, and tourism established as the main industry.

Back in the 1930s, the group settlement farms were isolated from one another and their communities. Families lived first in primitive shacks, and then in basic cottages, so everyday living was a struggle. The Sisters gave themselves to ministering in this poverty and remoteness and in the process wore themselves out.

Their story is told eloquently in Merle Bignells’ 1992 The Little Grey Sparrows.

For the Tertiaries of Western Australia, the plucky “little grey sparrows” have become part of the richness of our life, and we give thanks for their sacrificial service in this place. We gladly share this story with the wider Franciscan family.

Ted Witham
Minister Provincial
Feast of St Elizabeth AD 2010

Our Province has provided readings to celebrate his life. They are printed in the Manual, and are online here

Brother Francis’ memoir of the life of Brother Douglas is here on the Australian First Order Brothers’ site. .

We might take as a theme song for the next few days Psalm 62, set for Morning Prayer for the feast of St Clare.

The heart of the Psalmist’s spirituality, his “soul”, has three parts: waiting, deep silence, out of which grow an expectation that God will make known to us the divine presence.

Wait in silence for God, my soul.

We human beings are not good at waiting. People today scoff at the idea of waiting. We want it all, and we want it now. This impatient greed throws our common life out of kilter. Those who insist that they should have a new, four-bedroom house, with LCD TV screens – you know the scenario – skew the market so that housing in our country is further out of the reach of the poor. There are too few simpler, cheaper houses.

If, in our life with God, we cannot bear to wait, we will cheapen our prayer-life, and cheat our souls of growth. If, in our life with God, we cannot bear to wait, the strength that comes from bring rooted in community will simply pass us by.

St Clare in Assisi placed waiting at the heart of her life: she knew that there is a right time when we receive God’s gifts. She waited, presumably for quite a time, until it was right for her to leave her home on Palm Sunday 1212 to present herself to Francis as a potential member of his community.

Wait in silence for God, my soul.

Silence is also counter-cultural. In a world of continuous entertainment through our different screens and the sound-track of our MP3 players, we have forgotten to nurture silence. It was obvious to our forebears that silence is the language of prayer, and we have crowded it out. Silence always has its coming out: as with light, the silence speaks into the noise, and the noise does not overwhelm us.

Quite.

Quiet.

St Clare would have preferred a more “active” life than the one allowed her by Francis and by the Pope. However, the secluded cloister at San Damiano resounded to a nurturing and empowering silence. Clare made silence her friend, and her sisters in the Poor Clares, and in the Anglican Community of Saint Clare, have continued to make space for God in their choice for silence.

Wait in silence for God, my soul.

Waiting, silence, God: three elements of a spirituality. They continue to resound in my soul. In them are my hope and my salvation.

Let the Lady of Assisi sing in your heart over the coming days.

Wait in silence for God, my soul.